PayPal Deals With Chase, Citi Enables New Ways To Pay

Mobile payments company PayPal made two big announcements on Thursday (July 20): that it is teaming up with JPMorgan Chase to further expand its mobile payment services, and that it is expanding its partnership with Citi to include loyalty rewards.

In a blog post yesterday, PayPal said the deal with JPMorgan Chase will drive increased choice, flexibility and value for their joint customers, as well as enable the company to make further inroads into physical stores.

Under the deal, Chase-issued cards will support PayPal and can easily be added to existing PayPal accounts. The deal will also enable Chase customers to use Chase Ultimate Rewards points anywhere PayPal is accepted. Additionally, Chase Pay will become a way to fill the PayPal wallet.

“This deal allows us to strike one partnership agreement and reach millions of existing and potential new PayPal customers across the U.S.,” said Dan Schulman, president and CEO at PayPal, in the post. “We’re announcing this agreement today and expect the experience to go live for our joint customers in 2018.”

In a separate blog post, Jim Magats, VP, head of payments, product & engineering at PayPal, said that as part of the expanded collaboration with Citi, ThankYou Rewards cardholders will soon be able to redeem their points at merchants that accept PayPal online payments, contactless payments and in-app payments. Citi ThankYou Rewards cardholders can select their ThankYou Points to pay for all or part of their purchase when checking out online, Magats said in the post.

“We are rolling this out in the U.S. first, but will explore extending the use of ThankYou Rewards points in the PayPal wallet to our joint customers outside of the U.S. in the future,” wrote the executive.

According to PayPal, consumers are increasingly using loyalty points to pay for all sorts of things. Last year, consumers earned nearly $23 billion in rewards-related spending power from the six largest U.S. card issuers, Magats said.

“We want to extend the ubiquity of the PayPal platform and support all relevant types of payments that our customers use, which includes credit and debit but also rewards points,” he added.

These two deals with JPMorgan and Citi come on the heels of two other recent PayPal announcements.

Earlier this week, PayPal released news it has inked a deal with Samsung Electronics, enabling PayPal as a payment choice within Samsung Pay, the South Korean-based consumer electronics online payment service.

In a blog post, PayPal Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Bill Ready said the deal with Samsung brings PayPal to more customers. PayPal will now be listed as a payment method and can be used anywhere Samsung Pay is accepted in-store, online or in-app.

The mobile payments company also said this month it is being integrated with Apple Pay and that PayPal is now available in the iTunes App Store or Apple Music payments menu for transactions made on an iPhone, iPad or iPod in Mexico or Canada. The feature is reportedly going to be available soon in the U.S., though no specific data or timeframe for that rollout has been released.

“Over the past couple of years, PayPal has partnered with leaders across the ecosystem — from technology leaders like Apple, Facebook, Google and Samsung to financial leaders like FIS, Mastercard and Visa,” Jim Magats said. “These partnerships have helped us expand our services and reach, move into new contexts, increase conversion for our merchants, create better experiences and give our customers more seamless and secure ways to pay.”